Health information network Surescripts announced that it will offer EHR vendors free access to its National Record Locator Service, a service that gives providers an effective way to obtain a more complete view of a patient’s health history until 2019. Early EHR adopters of the NRLS include A number of leading EHR vendors, including Aprima, eClinicalWorks (eCW), Epic, Greenway Health, and NextGen Healthcare have already agreed to offer the capability to their users.
“Our customers have already seen increases in record location using Surescripts NRLS,” said Carl Dvorak, President of Epic. “A free NRLS could be a game changer to expand and accelerate vendor-neutral search—a big win for patient care nationwide and providers preparing for the reality of the post-reform environment.”
Surescripts National Record Locator Service Overview
Surescripts National Record Locator Service is a query and response solution that leverages Surescripts network and Master Patient Index of more than 140 million patients to locate and exchange patient records. The service provides care teams with access to a more complete picture of a patient’s care history regardless of where care was delivered and through any EHR vendor.
As a result, providers can quickly and efficiently identify and share patient records within existing workflows, so they can deliver more informed care – a capability not possible without true interoperability. Surescripts NRLS went live this year with 140 million patients and more than 2 billion interactions between those patients and members of their care teams.
The foundational ability to locate and exchange patient records with NRLS combined with Surescripts’ unique network capabilities and access to high quality data will enable more sophisticated and valuable clinical information exchange with the addition of new services in 2017. These new network services, including care alerts, will provide a unique view into patient care over time, across multiple locations and between different EHR systems. These new capabilities will move beyond event-based patient interactions and support a more comprehensive approach to managing patient health. These capabilities are vital to helping the healthcare system achieve the goals of cost containment, improved care quality, and broader patient access.
“Surescripts is proud to take a leading role in this landmark effort to scale interoperability nationwide by leveraging our innovative network capabilities and data assets, because we recognize the urgent need to enhance patient safety and care quality,” said Tom Skelton, Chief Executive Officer for Surescripts. “We are committed to working with all vendors to accelerate the adoption of record locator and exchange, while adding valuable new services to make meaningful health information available to providers.”
